April 2024: Eclipse Weekend in Austin!

Months and months in the making and anticipation, very very early on the morning of Saturday the 6th Liz found ourselves catching a flight to Nashville and then to Austin for the Big Barnes Family Eclipse Weekend Reunion Adventure.

Very nice timing had us arriving in Austin at basically the same time as Mom, Dad, and Emily. We met up and picked up our Kia Forte. It was nice, but dirty (a theme for the weekend).

We went straight from the airport to a barbecue establishment called LeRoy and Lewis and stood in their line for maybe only an hour or a tad more which we spent worrying about our chances of getting one (or two!) of their 30 bacon ribs cooked daily on Saturdays.

Good news: We got one. I mean two. And lots of other great stuff. Like their smoked meat burger! Wow. And three arugula salads!

The Edwards met up with us while we ate, they had already been in Austin for a few days. Cory used to come to Austin a lot for work so he was our plan and reservation maker and it was great luck to have him on the job. From lunch we went to the busy popular street, or one of the busy popular streets, to get ice cream and look at cowboy boots. Among other things.

Then we drove over to where our Air BnB was, which was a place called Lago Vista, and it was a good hour away. There was a lot of Air BnB drama that I didn’t have to help figure out as this trip came together, so I’m just glad we had a big place we all fit in.

Here’s a picture of outside our Air BnB at 8:30pm Saturday night. Surely we must be calling it a day at this point, right? Having gotten up at 3:45 to catch our flight? Nope! This is actually a picture from when we were leaving to go back into Austin for dinner. Sounded a little wild to me and a few others I’m sure, but…

This place we went, Suerte, was absolutely phenomenal and spectacular and probably my meal to beat for 2024!

We ate: guacamole, a mushroom tlayuda, suadero tacos (A+++!), carnitas, duck flautas in mole, broccoli, beet tostadas, choco semifredo tacos, and a cheesecake. And probably more? It was an awesome excellent meal.

From there, one car went to pick up Greg from the airport and the other went home, seemingly to call it a night, but actually to discover that all our bedding was filthy and they got to work doing emergency laundry loads and remaking beds for all the rest of us when we got in from the airport.

Sunday morning we all went on a nice walk from our Air BnB to Lake Travis. The night before we had all seen some deer in the dark during our drives, but by day we discovered that our neighborhood was running wild with deer. Deer like many neighborhoods have squirrels.

Then we walked on back to the house and enjoyed a session of conference. See this corvette? It’s not parked. It’s zooming by too fast.

From there we went back into Austin for lunch at this place The Corner and then had a big walkaround, culminating with a visit to Portland’s famous Voodoo Donuts.

From there we drove to the University of Texas where we admired their campus, buildings, and turtle pond.

From there we headed to dinner at Terry Black’s BBQ — parking in the neighborhood was tricky, but Mom did a great job getting into the spot. And the line for Terry Black’s had a major Radiator Springs Racers feel. The complimentary pickles at TB’s knocked my socks off. They were out of their famous beef ribs by the time we ordered, which knocked our spirits off a little. But we powered through the disapointment and enjoyed their delicious brisket and sausage.

Monday the 8th! The big day! We started our Eclipse Day experience with a neighborhood walk followed by a homemade breakfast taco feast.

Around noon we started sitting in the backyard and staring up at that sun. A magnificent treat was that dear NY friend Angelique was also in Austin for the eclipse and accepted our invite to bring her niece on over to our out of the way pad to enjoy the space and eclipsing. It was a partially cloudy day and speculation was high on whether or not we’d get a good view of the totality. Boy were we nervous about it! It was cool to see the moon starting to take a bite out of the sun and every time the clouds parted it was back on with the glasses for us. We were having a fun and excited time!

As the totality approached, clouds still an issue, we moved over to the street — I don’t know why, we just did, maybe because it’s where the garagemen were that Greg lent glasses to? Because there were some neighbors over there? Anyway, something moved us to move over there. And then, miracle of miracles (or common meteorological occurrence?) the clouds parted perfectly for the totalizing of the totality. And yes. Wow. What an incredible thing to witness, absolutely otherworldly. Stand under one totality and you catch the bug to see as many as you can pretty quick, people were looking up flights to Spain and Australia. BTW, this isn’t a blog post for seeing cool pictures of the eclipse, but it is a blog post for seeing cool pictures of people seeing the eclipse.

After coming down from the eclipse excitement we had dinner at Burger Bar, a nearby burger establishment, and then ate some cake to celebrate Mom’s 70th (there’s going to be a lot of these celebrations) and played some games.

Tuesday the ninth! A day for saying goodbye. The Edwardses left at like 3:30 that morning and then Mom, Dad and Emily left around 7:30. Liz, Greg and I Lyfted into the city and got lunch at Juan In A Million with Greg’s friend Ashley and then it was off to the airport and back to Columbus with us. What a trip! Wow!